


Partners

by creatureofhobbit



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:57:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Mick helps Ray see he is of value to the team.





	

Ray knows that Sara had said those words in anger, and also that at the time she said them, she had no way of knowing how true they were about to become. But they haunt him now, as he prepares for life aboard the Waverider without his suit, without any powers of his own. 

He knows it was what had to be done. But there’s a part of him that can’t help but resent Nate even as he tries to teach him to control his powers, knowing that the whole reason he lost his suit at all was that he’d tried to rescue Nate from feudal Japan, knowing that Nate acquired his steel power without even trying or even really wanting it, that he’d only got it in the first place because he’d been treated with that modified Nazi serum. And who had done that? Ray, that was who. He’s told him he’s okay, and sometimes he even thinks he is, but sometimes he can’t even look at the guy without remembering the Ray Palmer he used to be. There he is, with a power he didn’t even want and can’t control, while Ray’s there feeling like he can’t be of any use to the team.

He looks at the rest of his team, and sometimes wonders why he’s even there. Look at them all. Stein and Jax, with their ability to merge and become Firestorm, Sara with her assassin training. And Amaya had wondered why Mick was part of the team, but his experiences as a criminal were of help in understanding the people they came up against, and when he was needed, apart from that blip around the time he became Chronos, he came through. Kendra, of course, had had her Hawkgirl powers…but he wouldn’t think of her, not about how when it had come down to it, she had chosen Carter and always would.

Once upon a time, Ray had been of some use to the team. He watched everyone with their own abilities, but he knew he’d always have his suit, so he felt he was making a valued contribution. Now here Sara was, benching him where before he would have been part of the mission, and it just makes him feel useless.

Mick’s given him Snart’s gun, said he wants Ray for a partner, but as Ray tries to master it, and struggles for the umpteenth time, part of him feels like throwing it to the floor in frustration. Maybe Snart had designed it so only he could operate it properly, that would not surprise him.

“Not true,” Mick says when he walks in on this scene and Ray asks him. “He wouldn’t have liked me telling you, but I was the only one who knew just how many attempts it took him to get it right. I’ll help you, spend some time with you showing you how to use it, just like you’ve been doing with Nate. And if anyone asks me later, you know I’m gonna deny I said this, Haircut, but you’re not useless. Without you, I’d be still running around the ship like those things on iZombie.”

Ray tries, but fails, not to laugh. “You watch iZombie?”

Mick pulls a face. “I heard Jax telling Stein about it. Some idea he’s got of getting the guys to have a zombie theme night to help him get over his fear of zombies. Me, I’m sitting that one out.”

“Let’s say we’re having a training session, that’ll get us both out of it,” Ray laughs along with Mick. Maybe he would master the gun that day, maybe he wouldn’t. But here in the moment with Mick, he feels like it’s a possibility, that he can be of use to the team after all.


End file.
